In Loving Memory
by marajs
Summary: A former Jedi visits his grave, remembering what it had cost them....what it cost her. Oneshot, first fanfic! please review, unless it involves flaming!


**My first fanfic, not to mention oneshot, please don't flame!**

In Loving Memory

A tear trickled down her cheek as she approached the headstone. She knelt down on the grass before it, staring at his holographic picture. She placed a jeweled rose on the polished rock that was in the ground, no more than a shining black square, then took out a small laser. She welded the edges of the rose to the rock, and then stared into the blue eyes of his picture once again. The rose was her everlasting symbol, the only flower on his grave that would endure. She stared into his eyes as memories flooded her mind and mingled with the fresh tears on her face….

0o0o0o0o0

"You can't be serious," Mace Windu's angry voice came through in her mind. "I thought you were the more rational one. You mean to tell me that the two of you have loved each other all this time? And you intentionally kept it from the rest of the Council?"

"We never acknowledged our love, but looking back, it was there all along," she had said. "We didn't acknowledge it until it was too late."

0o0o0o0o0

She had been there. She had watched him fall, a few walls away from Obi-Wan, she, too had been unable to reach him. She had left the Queen after feeling a sickeningly horrible sense of foreboding. She still remembered the look in his eyes as he fell. Mace had ignored her misery and chewed her out anyway.

0o0o0o0o0

"The Code strictly forbids it, Master Jedi," he had said angrily to her. This had been a few days after his funeral, when they were back at the Temple, and emotions were high. She had snapped into pieces at that statement, nearly waking every being in the Temple at that hour.

"He's _dead!_ Don't you get it?! It doesn't matter anymore because HE'S DEAD!" she had nearly screamed at her old master.

Master Windu had not been pleased with this outburst.

"The rest of the Council has reached a decision about what to do with you." At this, she had started to protest, but Mace had cut her off. "You will take your ship and your possessions, and you will be expelled from the Order."

She had been so shocked by the statement that she had replied without thinking.

"What about his lightsaber?" she'd said in a small voice. It was illegal to keep a lightsaber if you were no longer a Jedi.

"What?" Mace had asked.

"Qui-Gon wanted me to have his lightsaber before…. before he died," she'd said softly. Mace softened ever so slightly.

"You may keep it," he'd said. He had turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at her.

"The Council will see you off tomorrow morning," he had said quietly before turning and leaving, closing the door behind him.

After he had left, she couldn't hold her tears in any longer and had crashed to her knees on the floor and sobbed with her face in her hands. She'd had a hard time controlling her hold on the Force and let go at this point. Wind, seemingly from nowhere, had blown durasheets and a few small objects around the room until she felt as if she'd cried every teardrop in her being. She'd cried herself to sleep that night, and had barely said a word when she left except responding to the Council's, "May the Force be with you," with her own, "and with you." She'd wordlessly gotten on board her she and flown away without a backward glance. She'd had only one destination in mind once she'd gotten out of the atmosphere: Naboo. The place they had buried Qui-Gon's ashes….

0o0o0o0o0

She snapped back into reality and looked around before seeing the stone. She caressed the polished black rock, and an idea popped into her head. She took out her laser again, and began burning an inscription above the rose on the rock:

"In memory of Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn. We will never forget what it cost."

Below the rose, in a code she and Qui-Gon had devised on a mission together long ago, she burned something else: "In loving memory of you. It cost us everything, but I would not change the past for anything. A piece of my heart will always belong to you." She put the laser away and stared into Qui-Gon's holographic eyes one last time. She stood and started to walk back to her ship. She stopped a few paces away, turned, and whispered something in the direction of his grave.

"I will always love you." A soft breeze caressed her face, and she turned back to her ship. Her new life awaited her.

**So, what do you think? If you absolutely hate it, don't tell me! Please review, but no flames!!**


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